Motor vehicle brake components are commonly subjected to vibrations during the course of normal operation. Among other potential adverse affects, these vibrations may result in noise that gets transmitted into the vehicle's passenger compartment and beyond. For example, while braking, the occurrence of both low and high frequency vibrations in one or more brake components oftentimes results in a particular noise that is heard and felt by a driver.
One way to minimize these vibrations, and thus unwanted noise, is to friction damp a vehicle's brake components with a mechanism that utilizes friction to absorb and dissipate mechanical energy associated with the vibrations. To this end, a wide range of friction damping means have been developed for disposition into various parts of a brake component during the manufacturing stage. Such means ultimately contribute to friction damping by providing a surface that can frictionally interact with an adjacent contacting surface of the brake component.
During product production, however, the disposition of the friction damping means into a vehicle brake component can oftentimes be a tricky procedure. Efforts are thus continually being made to simplify, expedite, and improve such procedures.